STRICTLY ENFORCED

I was going to entitle this angry little blog entry 'Here's Your Cup of Tea, Choke On It!' but I find the idea of brewing a cup of tea to just allow it to sit and cool and then go un-sipped whilst I photograph it abhorrent. Instead I've delved into my back catalogue and found something that is quite representative of a path I'm commonly treading these days in my photography.

Why the invective in the vetoed title? Well unfortunately it was brought on by the behaviour and narrow mindedness of some of the members of Walthamstow & District Photo Society last night. 

Last night's presentation was by Katherine Green, a Walthamstow artist who uses portrait photography to document subjects like the 1948 Olypians, the Save Walthamstow Cinema campaign and the closing of Walthamstow Dogs. A St. Martin's alumni she works on commissions such as her work with the National Portrait Gallery & BT entitled The Road to 2012, more personal projects like her portraits of Take Away restaurants and artistic collaborations like the Meet project.

I find her work fascinating and I hope you find the time to click at least a couple of the links above. Her talk and the photography she showed was interesting and her passion for her craft and the affinity with her subjects is apparent in varying degrees and to varying effect.

Unfortunately, seen through the very narrow lens of 'Amateur Photography' or more accurately 'Photographic Society Photography', Katherine's photos are a collage of things which will upset competition judges and are not worth exploring in any more depth than asking (several times) which camera was used to take the shot, what ISO, which shutter speed and whether flash was employed. Each question rang out the sound of 'the point' being missed by a large margin and then aimless words ricochetting around empty spaces behind blank eyes before falling with derision to the floor with to lay beside provoker's artistic ambition. Hold up... I mentioned I was angry, right?

With good reason I believe! One of the questions was "Have you ever submitted your photo into a competition and received feedback from a judge?". 'No' was the answer, and 'why would she?' was my thought, Katherine's work has value without the approval of a judge, no matter how accomplished that judge may be.

What that value is should have been obvious to all the people in that meeting room last night, not because they're photographers but because they're from Walthamstow, many of them born and bred and all with a deep pride in their community. It's reproachful that a Billy-Come-Lately like me feels he has to point out that it's the way Katherine's photos represent their community, and the fact that they do, that should be admired. That fact alone should encourage people to look past their strictly enforced laws of thirds or threes and toward the emotional or artistic heart of the work.

It may not be your cup of tea, but to be so dismissive just because something doesn't fit easily into a very narrow definition of what is good and worthy is vexing to the tune of eight paragraphs!

'So here's your cup of tea...'

 

Posted via email from stephen walrond

Writing The Fantastic Unknown

Let's write, just for the sake of it let's just tap away at the keys and see where it takes me… and then go back and edit what I've written because let's face it, you and I, this is going to be awful.

So, what to write about? The present, the past, the future? The unknown, the known? The fantastic, the mundane? Each subject is as worthy as the other, and in all honestly I probably know as much about each subject as I do the other (and seeing as The Unknown was a category, well that don't say much for what I know now does it?).

I know! I will talk about an amalgamation of a few of those subjects, I will choose "The Future", "The Unknown" and "The Fantastic", mix that in a bowl and lick the spoon.

So, Stephen from Derby University, who's specialist subject is The Fantastic Unknown Future, the time starts with your first question, and that question is… Whaaa?

Scary ain't it, I suppose that's why most of us only take life a day at a time, and a fair few of us spend most of the our time in the past or ignore the future for the pleasures, pains, trials and tribulations of the present. Spend some time in the Fantastic Unknown however and the possibilities are overwhelming, mind boggling, stupefying.

The expanse of possibilities, of choices and consequences are so many and so varied that most of us will look at the future and reduce it to something simpler, something less abundant, less overwhelming. A simple binary choice maybe… "stop or go", "stay or leave", try or do not try", "speak now or forever hold try peace".

The future, reduced to something so simple as a 'do/do not' choice seems manageable and controllable, but doesn't seem half as fantastic. A binary choice isn't a choice between anything and everything anymore, it's not full of wonder or awe, it's a fork in the road where the consequence of taking either path is a known outcome, each choice as measured and assured as the other.

What if life wasn't just a series of choices, each with a known outcome, each as predictable and controllable as the other? Oh wait… it's not. We may try to reduce the Fantastic Unknown to just that, but that is not what it is… however we try and trivialise the future it will always be fantastic, surprising, worrying and unknown.

So, let's write something, just for the sake of it, just tap away and see what happens. But be careful, because in life there is no going back to edit what you've written, you can only hope that your choice, now, makes sense then, but let's face it, you and I… you just don't know.

Film Review: The Spirit

Never read the comic, and never will! And if that was Frank Millers intention, to put a self-confessed comic geek off of an otherwise revered comic… then, well done Frank-my-boy, because that is exactly what you have achieved.

The film starts well, in the vein of pulp detective comics and the hammy acting and style over substance that was evident from the first moments reminded me fondly of the Dick Tracy movie; ‘for kids’ I thought to myself,’ that’s fine’.

But, not even kids would sit through this absolute mess of a movie! It was bad, bad, bad and that is all I have to say about it.

Don’t see it!

Charlie Clempson Fan Club: Found A Rant part II

OK, so let the insanity continue, here is the second part of the 'Found Rant' about Charlie Clempson and how I felt about the whole affair. And if part one was bad, then this is far far worse. I have to say that the Stephen of 2009 isn't to impressed with the Stephen of 2003... he was dick.

Seems obvious, you can't be in love if she or he don't love you back. You can't love someone in a half hearted matter, it takes a whole heart, and you can't love someone without showing it.

So when I was sitting with a piece of paper in my hands, with a neat two column list of all the things which made me a shit boyfriend, and she was telling me athat she 'still' loved me but loved herslef more and couldn'y change me so couldn't be with me, a voice screamed in me "LIAR, COWARD" A voice screamed at her and I felt a swell of emotion, more emotion than any person should feel at once.

I pitied her, the coward, the liar. I pitied me, the accused , the unjustly treated. I hated her, every word on that page, in two neat columns all that care and thought put into hurting me! I hated me, so much of that list was true, if it was only true of a moment of our time together it was true enough.

No one's perfect, no one. Sometimes I could be 1. Inconsiderate... but so could she. I remember this one I was crying, tears weren't flooding down my cheeks but I was weeping as much as a healthy VD free boy can. And I was opening up to her about how my Dad was more interested in work and his other families than me and how [NAME OMITTED] had [OMITTED TEXT], which had huge ramifications on on all future relationships.

It wasn't hard to open up, I was drinking and I was in love. I was so in love that I ignore d the fact that she hadn't even tried to console me before launching into her [ORIGINAL TEXT ABOUT HER OWN SKELETONS & DEMONS OMITTED].

I ended up feeling no better, and [in fact] a whole lot worse. I was racked with guilt for even thinking I had things bad, felt guilty about haveing raw feelings, she made me feel guilty for someone other than her [???].

That to me is fucking inconsiderate! I could also recall a moment when I was 12. Overbearing. But I had asked her if I was being a pain, admittedly after acting absolutely useless without her, but she had made out like I was not a burden and she actually enjoyed using me like a 'project'.

I know I enjoyed it, being cared after, having someone to rely on. Truth is I could have done with seeing her less during that period but it was so satisfying, being able to moan about work and get another persons perspective. Truth was she was a distraction, work had become to intensive and she took the edge off, which lead me to act 13. needy and become 14. smothering.

I personally think that there's no need for 13 or 14 after 12 but I guess for a girl who spells love in more than one way...

And that is where that little rant ended... oh and if you were wondering, how many points were on the two columned list then the answer is 'a lot more than 14' that list was extensive and not only well presented but mostly (honestly) correct.

Charlie Clempson Fan Club: Found A Rant

So my Mum brought over some old papers and junk that I forgot at hers before I had left. Amongst the papers, mostly old bills and unopened letters, I found something I had written about Charlie Clempson and I, I thought that I would post it.

This fast part is mental, and testament to how much of a geek I was (am?), I really get upset about receiving a Batman comic instead of a something from the Marvel stable... this took up a page of erratic and totally not self-aware ranting. 

Anyway, in attempt to exercise a few demons... here is the first part of the 'Found Rant'

I keep finding artifacts from our relationship, little things that are undeniably 'her'! Pictures, notes emails, presents that I never liked.

The last trinket was a Batman comic, fuck knows why! Why I had kept it or why she bought it for me. Part of me hopes I'd bought her equally unwanted gifts, gifts which smacked of laziness and ignorance.

A fucking Batman comic?! I'm a Marvel man! Give me Spide-Man (with or without a hyphen), give me The Ultimates or Supreme Powers, not Batman! Why Batman?
I'd go as far as to say that the difference between a Dark Knight fan and a Spidey fan is as wide as the gulf between a Irish Catholic and an Protestant. No difference really, yet it still seems acceptable to hate each other.

If she'd known me she would have known that I wouldn't appreciate that sort of shit. And she would have definitely known that I wouldn't have like her writing on every other page: "You Amaze me..." this and "I luv you" that!

Stuff that didn't just geel gag-worthy in retrospect, I distinctly remember masaging [the tension out of the] back of mine own neck whilst forcing a smile and faking gratitude.

She couldn't even write LOVE... L - O -V - E, love and not the cop out LUV.
There's only one way to spell it and contrary to most women's belief, there is only one way to do it.

Completely.

Mutually.

Lovingly. [Um, can't use the word lovingly in as an adverb to describe love]

And there's more... woah! I didn't realize that I was so very, very, very maladjusted. Part two tomorrow.

JETs Are A Humourless Bunch of...

I called Zoe the other day and after she lightly poked fun at me for something trivial I acted offended and became defensive, but also apologetic. Fast forward to a conversation with Emily Collins and I crack a joke that I think she takes offense to, cue groveling, backtracking and more groveling. She hadn't taken offense at all and then accused me of spending too much time on the Miyazaki JET listserve where people are overly worried about everything that isn't "love", "death" and "taxes". Similarly, Zoe told me that I'd been in Japan to long, and I had become unaccustomed to British humour.

What happened?

There used to time when I had my priorities straight, I had a sense of humour, a sense of perspective and I wasn't offended at the drop of a hat. Are these overly sensitive Nihongo Nerds and Nippon Apologists rubbing off on me? For the sake of all that is good, I really hope not.

God forbid that I be sarcastic

I don't want to be the type of person that spits their dummy out when someone has the gaul to call them "duck" as an non-gendered term of endearment, or for similarly innocuous offenses. God forbid that I be sarcastic, and say something which isn't meant to be taken seriously (amongst friends who should know me well enough to realise).

I'm really looking forward to getting back to British Humour, there's something uniquely comforting in being amongst people who can laugh at themselves and laugh along with people laughing at them.

I've never heard apathy so condescendingly explained

Let's look at American JETs... god forbid you criticise their government, not even jokingly. They've all had it up to here with 'the hating' and it's 'really not their fault', boo hoo. Putting aside the fact that every American comedian or person with a soapbox makes a living from making fun of their own country... if you, as a non-Northern American try to have a conversation about your world, then be careful, because in JET land, feelings are easily hurt.

I've never met a race of more confused patriots. Patriotism is definitely in their blood, but it clashes with the almost Catholic portioned dose of shame they've inherited from years of questionable foreign policy. And ask any American JET about their foreign governments foreign policy and they all immediately get defensive, "It's not my fault! It's not my fault". Apparently, in the greatest democracy in the world, American citizens don't even have a choice in who they elect to presidency, unless they live in a 'swing state then there's no point in even voting... apparently, I've never heard apathy so condescendingly explained.

Honestly, I don't hate Americans, I'm not 'hating' on you. But please understand that people are going to have an opinion about things that are going on in their world, and they will often share them or want to discuss them with people they perceive as mature enough to field (often not even personal) criticism and discuss it. And not, conversely, go wide-eyed, start the bottom lip quivering and complain that the other countries aren't sharing their toys... you big baby!

Oh well... I guess that's the way it crumbles. Cookie-wise. Maybe after leaving Japan we will all have our sense of humour reinstated.

About my dreads and Japan

I needed this, like 2 years ago, but I needed it in Japanese.

Just the other day at a bus stop outside my school and right by a hair dressers I was attacked by an excitable young hair dresser who thought that my leaning away from her and saying "No" was a playful game of 'tag' or 'piggy in the middle'. I actually shrunk away from her because I don't like strange people simply inviting themselves into my hair.

I don't know if this T-shirt is actually needed in English, I've never had an English speaking person just reach up and grab my locks without invitation, in fact most people don't even ask for it. However Japanese people will grab at it before even asking my name, sometimes they simply grab it and then don't even speak to me afterwards.

And that's not even starting on the stupid questions I get asked about them, most of which are plain offensive. Actually Japanese people aren't the only culprit here:

I feel like naming names, so I will; Shiv, a former JET and an otherwise OK guy, likes to make "it's because you're black..." jokes, and "is this a black thing..." jokes, in a very 'I can joke about it because I'm liberal and we're both of colour so we're brothers' sort of way. This is tolerable, it's not as amusing as Shiv thinks it is and betrays how very un-liberal he is more than anything. Well, the other day he casually joked about me not washing my hair for 3 years in front of Alex and Patrick, to which my response was "who wouldn't was their hair for three years? That would be gross"... the question was met with awkward, knowing silence and the subject was changed.

Now let me ask a question, it's a simple one and I think you may be able to answer it: When my hair gets dirty what else would I do but wash it?

I've told people that I wash my hair with sand before now and they've wholeheartedly believed me... honestly, how ignorant/stupid can you be to believe that hair can be washed with sand!? And where would one get sand in the Midlands, so named because it's no where near the coast.

People see dreadlocks and they lose their heads, Japanese people suddenly think it's OK to treat people without consideration and the rest of the world suddenly believe that sand is a solvent and a detergent.

If we're still not on the same page then let me break it down for you.

YES- I was my hair.

WITH water and shampoo.

NO- My dreads don't suddenly become an afro if I wash them

BECAUSE- They're not held together by dirt

I would like to give people the benefit of doubt, and think that they could come to these conclusions by themselves, it's not cool to just grab at strangers and the only way to keep something clean is to clean it, but apparently it's that much easier to look down your nose at someone, make assumptions (probably based upon prejudices from less enlightened times), snigger, laugh and mock.

Unsent Mail

A quick look in my drafts folder reveals this little gem. I'm not sure why I didn't send this but, so much water has passed under that bridge now that I'm kind of glad I didn't bother. Some problems are best ignored it seems.

Dear [DELETED]

Please refrain from talking about me behind my back, it's been ten months now of me hearing second hand what you've said to such and such about me. It's become tiresome and it's exhausting.

I don't care to hear your motives, I'm not interested whether it was in my or other peoples best interest. I do not like hearing about myself from other people. I don't think anyone does.

This is not about [DELETED], please don't confuse the two issues. This is about me feeling resentment toward you due to things I've heard second hand over a matter of months said by you about me, from more than one person on more than one occasion.

I do not enjoy feeling that way, I take no pride in the things I've said as a result of hearing something said about me, nor am I pleased that this ill feeling persists. I think that discretion on your part could help the situation and I would urge you to remember that people do talk and that I do have ears and feelings.

Regards

Stephen

Mad as a Cow

I was just asked how to say "Bovine Spongform Encephalopathy" and I told them. I pronounced Bovine... Bow-vine or Boh-vine and then a discussion ensued infront of me questioning my pronounciation, whether it was Bow or Ba, in this discussion it was said I'm pretty sure, that UK pronounciation of Bovine is different to that of American and I often say things wrong? WHAT THE FUCK... That would be like me going to china and telling them that their readings of Kanji are wrong and only the Japanese readings are right. Considering that all I heard on the BBC was BSE this and Mad Cow disease that for about 2 years, it would be suprising if I couldnt say BOVINE correctly...

I woke up in a good mood, and come to school and get wound up straight away, I work in an enviroment where my opinion doesnt seem to mean a thing and I'm tired of just living for the weekends. FACT!

You inspire me to be less like you.

From now on I think that I will mainly be doing stuff that you think is uncool. You're so judgmental and opinionated that it borders upon fascism, and I have no qualms with going out of my way to look absurd in your eyes.

Why? Because your opinion, far from meaning nothing to me, is actually held in quite high regard as a windsock that indicates the direction I shouldn't be going in.

Soooo...

• You think reading comics is uncool... I'll be subscribing to everything from Archie to Superman.



• You think that computer games are uncool... I'll be bidding on a Game&Watch in my living with the internet channel on my Wii.



• You think that poetry is uncool... I'll be on the spoken word stage placing awkward pauses in my staccato style speech and wearing a beret .



• You think that films without big explosions, special effects and a script lifted from a comic aren't cool... I'll be sat in front of There Will Be Blood followed with a healthy dose of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest to follow.



• You think that blogging is uncool... need I say more.

And who is the titular YOU? It's you, honestly, it's you... OK, just kidding it's not YOU... but yeah, it is you.

Peace... I'm off to write some fan fiction for Harry Potter.

Ghost In The Shell

From BBC Website:

Spielberg In 3D
With his studio boss hat on, Steven Spielberg is masterminding a live action version of Japanese Manga classic Ghost in the Shell. Dreamworks has nabbed the rights to the futuristic cartoon cop caper and plans to turn it into a 3D movie with proper actors and everything.
The film will follow the adventures of a top secret unit that specialises in techno crime. First published as a comic in 1989, the series has spawned three anime movies a TV series and a bunch of videogames. "Ghost in the Shell is one of my favorite stories" Spielberg told Variety. "It's a genre that has arrived, and we enthusiastically welcome it to DreamWorks". Either that or he's been watching Saturday morning telly with his kids again.

Is it me, or is everything going Live Action these days? Is it me or is Hollywood pilfering a lot of ideas from Asia these days? Is it me or is every other movie that comes out a comic related film?

No, no Stephen, it's not just you.

I like comics, I love them in fact and have really missed them during my stay here in Japan. Comics are awesome and more power to the creators if they can take their intellectual properties to the massive audience that cinema has. But film is also awesome, and in film stories that can't be told in comics are totally possible.

this device is totally cinematic, it can't be repeated in comic, or book without greatly diminishing the effect

I was watching a heavily comic influenced film just two days ago, heavily comic influenced but not a LIVE ACTION film of a comic. In fact it's actually based on a Philip K Dick story. Theirs a device in the movie where multiple permutations of the same event are laid over one another and played out at the same time, and considering that 'comic-time' isn't real time (not that film time is either, it's actually the illusion of actual time) then this device is totally cinematic, it can't be repeated in comic, or book without greatly diminishing the effect.

So why aren't more films just being films? Why aren't we seeing more innovations like 'bullet-time' instead of seeing frame for frame recreations of comic books?

I'm hoping that it's just a stage that the industry is going through, I'm hoping that although it's very vogue now to borrow from comics, in a few years time maybe the Hollywood will realise how much of a boon it really is, and how much they could really differentiate film and comics (without the use of gimmicks like 3D) from each other.

Photography

Where am I at the moment with photography? I just don’t know. I’ve not committed myself to buying a pro or even a semi-pro camera yet and I’ve not found a style either.

My subjects range from portraits to close-ups of mushrooms and flowers, from landscapes to candid shots. I don’t really have a direction; I’m just kind of snap happy at the moment.

Now I don’t want to come across like I’m not enjoying my camera, and I’m loving the results of my picture taking, but I can’t help but feel that if I was to just concentrate on one thing I could be taking really great photo’s.

So, maybe I will take the first step and buy a new camera, research lenses, read a book or two. I’ve been considering taking some evening classes when I return home, perhaps a cooking course as I’m sure that I’ve forgotten how. Not only would an evening class keep me from my old bad habits of cotching in front of the TV all evening and achieving nothing, but I could meet new people.

I looked at a few Saturday Japanese courses and have already decided that that isn’t a bad way of spending a Saturday afternoon. I have no illusions of ever coming back to Japan, no illusion and no motivation either, but learning Japanese at my own pace has been fun if not totally fruitful. So if Saturday is Japanese, perhaps Sunday can be photography.

Hhhmm… and now I’m on this train of thought, I really want to carry on with other things when I get back to England, so as well as the Japanese study I also want to carry on travelling. I don’t want to spend years on the other side of the world, but I don’t want to spend four day weekends drunk in London (again). Instead I could take long trips to some part of Britain or Europe I’ve never seen before. Life is too short for repetition.



So this rant about my lacklustre photography is turning into a bit of an unruly, unfocused, manifesto, seems like my lack of photographic direction is a symptomatic of general lack of direction… screw it, let’s run with it.

My poetry. I was reading through some of the older stuff the yesterday on my way back from a Farewell party and, even though I was pretty drunk at the time, I still think it’s pretty good. So, what to do with that?



Do I just keep writing them compulsively, and keep them hidden away on my Mac and backed up on my hard drive? Or do I, and this is what I was drunkenly day dreaming about… go and perform them… hhmm, ponder.

When considering the complex subject of ME, there is just so much to consider. Navel gazing isn’t easy, and I think that I will need a while longer being self-obsessed, self-involved and introverted before I come to any worthy decision. Luckily “me-time” is my favoutite kind of time.

Hhmmm… maybe self portraits.

The Charlie Clempson Fan Club

I lived with a girl once, not something I will encourage anyone to do in a hurry. It's a tough gig, you're in close proximity of your lover all the time, and unless you feel that you can relax with this person, that you can truly feel comfortable with the, then you're up shit's creek without a fuck-oar.

Fortunately I loved this girl so living with her was a whole heap of fun most of the time. We fought sometimes, and there were many an occasion when I didn't understand why she seemed to stubbornly refuse to see things from my far more rational POV.

Fighting escalated, and those things that I thought were cute and endearing became boring and in some cases irritating. I consequently became less considerate, more irritable in her presence and less eager to be in her around her too. Many a night I came home late without calling, or went out with the boys with no word on whether I would be home or where I was going.

one of us was crying in a comedy club and the other was rolling their eyes and making very audible and exasperated sighs

On one of our dates I had invited most of my friends to come with us not realizing that the girlfriend and I were supposed to be enjoying the evening alone, and on realizing my mistake instead of being apologetic I became defensive; "Why can't you just enjoy the evening anyway? Do you have to make a scene now?"

A similar incident on Valentines where I pointed out several of her faults that particularly annoyed me, forgot my wallet and didn't comfort her when I pushed her to tears, led to us breaking up.

I felt angry... unfairly treated, unjustly rejected, I felt that I deserved a second chance...

It's odd, from this point in time, looking back with the aid of hindsight I can see that we were on the rocks and things were not good. If I had been more attentive to the relationship I may have tried to weather the storm or had ended it before it had got so bad that one of us was crying in a comedy club and the other was rolling their eyes and making very audible and exasperated sighs.

However when that fateful day came, and the tables were turned and it was Charlie telling me what it was exactly that she didn't like about me, I found myself totally unprepared. I felt angry, I felt unfairly treated, unjustly rejected, I felt that I deserved a second chance, totally unaware that I had taken liberties with second and third chances already, the relationship was over.

I wish now that I had only take the time to think about everything, to see things from Charlie's point of view and then to think about myself and how I'd been acting, and more importantly why I'd been acting that way. I was inconsiderate, uncaring and thoughtless because it's in my nature to be, but because I had become bored of Charlie, bored of our relationship and resentful of her for being the part of the relationship I no longer enjoyed.

Living with someone has it's benefits you see, companionship being the biggest and one, and with companionship sometimes dependancy. I had grown dependent on Charlie through friendship and love, and then in the later stages of our relationship, just out of habit.

I learnt to never pretend that something is something it is not on the basis of what it once was

It was Charlie who realised that I wasn't in love with her first, she then acted on that, mostly because she needed love and affection as well as companionship, and she found it in someone else.

It took a while to get over what I felt was a betrayal, I felt that if there were problems with our relationship then she should have come to me before going to someone else. I feel like a hypocrite now, because I felt there were problems in our relationship but instead of facing them I ignored them, in doing so I betrayed my own feelings and was just as dishonest to her.

The end of that relationship was a pivotal point in my life, initially it meant that I would later live with Brin and consider going to Japan on the JET programme as a result, I would find work in London and decide to become a Project Manager and I would refocus my efforts at University and come out the other end having done pretty well. But more than that I learnt to never let myself become that same coward again, who would stay in a relationship just because the alternative is being alone, or pretend that something is something it is not on the basis of what it once was.

And that is why I'm a Charlie Clempson fan, because without her brave example of self preservation highlighting my comparable example of cowardice, I wouldn't be the person I am today. And I may be at fault in many ways but I like myself and know my own worth enough to know what I deserve and when I deserve better.

British Media Hates British Celebrity

Yesterday a friend pointed out this quote from the Chicago Tribune about Britain's relationship with their celebrities.

"The British media's fickle attitude toward celebrities reflects the self-doubt of a country looking for sometone to blame for its loss of greatness"

The article went on to use our relationship with our soccer stars as an example of our fickleness toward our national heroes. Written below is how I respond to the opinion piece in the Chicago Tribune and what I think of British celebrity.

Our media does turn on celebrities really quickly though, the football example is a bad one because our relationship with sporting stars isn't easily likened with our relationship with celebrities because of our passion for football and the national/local pride that comes with supporting a team.
But my friend emailed me the other day and complained about yet another "100 Most Annoying People of The Year" show, and Russel Brand coming in the top 10. Russels success is ubiquitous, and tabloids hate that, so they and trash TV will attack him. Most people see it for what it is and ignore it, it's just a way to sell tomorrows fish & chip wrappers. British people appreciate hard work, dedication and success, they especially appreciate being entertained, evidenced by the fact that Britain has produced and then championed some of the greatest musicians, authors, film makers and actors of the 20th century.

As for not knowing who to blame for our loss of 'greatness', my generation and the generations that are most relevant these days weren't born into the Empire, they were born after most of the colonial countries had declared independance and the UK was once again a small fish in a large pond (still managing to hold its own).

One way to judge success, and this holds true with countries as it does with celebrities, is to look at who is aiming childish vitriol at you and barely masking their envy whilst doing so. When an American can talk about the loss of the UK's power and have it not come across at all ironic is when the UK really has a loss to lament.

34

Bye bye nameless students who I care very little about.

Yesterday the worst of any of my classes had their last lesson and I made a small impromptu speech about how I wish them well in the future and hope that they enjoyed their school lives. I wondered whilst stood in front of them if they could tell that I had no interest in being there whatsoever and didn't care about any of them at all. 

Harsh words, I know, but I really don't. No connections were made, none of them stood out, inspired me or touched my soul in some day-time TV show kind of way. I've literally been phoning it in for the last 3 months; I realised that no amount of encouragement, creativity, or enthusiasm will ever be enough to get these kids to take an interest in communicating in English.

It's not just the students and me who don't care, the teachers are totally exam orientated and not at all communications orientated. The whole year with these students has been about memorizing by rote learning and then repeating those phrases within very discrete contexts.

These students are going to go on to be shop keepers, beauticians and factory workers, 7 years of English classes was an absolute waste of time for them, and they knew it too.

I watched a film the other day called Survive Style 5, a Japanese film that was beautiful but also pointless and schizophrenic to boot. Vinnie Jones was in the film and played a hitman who would ask his prey a existential question before offing them; 

"What is your function in life?"

If they could answer satisfactorily then he wouldn't kill them; as I stood in front of those kids, lying from my back teeth about how proud they have made me and how much I enjoyed their skits, I wondered how I would escape being killed by Vinnie when he asked me what my purpose was and I answered:

"I repeat phrases from a text book and encourage others to repeat them back to me in the hope that one day those phrases will be of use to those people, but fully aware all along, that they won't."

So, yesterday was my last class with 34 Homeroom and today my last with 33 Homeroom, the end of a reciprocal relationship where we're both the most inconsequential thing in each other's lives.

Where There's Smoke, There's Apathy it Seems

When I wrote this the U.K. had just put into affect a smoking ban in all public spaces, I decided to not post this because it was seemed too angry. Now viewed months later it seems just as angry but I'm not sure that that makes it any less honest.

Before Japan and when I was living with my mother I had come home one morning after a heavy night on the tiles and on the precipices of a ecstasy come down, to find my mum awake and suffering from shortness of breath and chest pains. I had never become so sober so quickly and as soon as I did I called an ambulance, called my mum’s boyfriend and waited by her side and attended to her. I wasn’t scared at the time, that was not the overwhelming emotion, I was angry.

In front of me was a woman who has had health scare after health scare but still ate in excess. In front of me was a woman who would smoke cigarette after cigarette in front of her son and long after a friend of hers, a 40 a day friend, suffered from a stroke and was crippled by it. Despite the health warnings, my constant nagging and pleading and common sense and she never stopped smoking.

I sat in front of her and was angry because what I foresaw, as clearly as I can see my hand before of my face, what I foresaw was day upon day of me attending to her as she slowly faded away. Both of us too young to lose our lives but both of us losing our lives anyway. And it occurred to me how selfish her addiction was, how careless and unthinking she was to poison her self slowly and neglect herself totally leaving me to pick up the pieces.

My Mum is ‘healthy’ now, well, as healthy as she has ever been because despite the hospital scare she hasn’t stopped smoking and despite working a high-demand job she never exercises. It’s only a matter of time before I walk in on her again and she’s clutching her chest in pain.

So, why am I thinking about this now? Well recently in the UK a smoking ban was put in place. No smoking in public places is the basic rule, so that means bus shelters, nightclubs, pubs. And I’m delighted!

Smokers seem to have no semblance of social etiquette, they will happily pollute a persons space, air and lungs for their fix without as much as a ‘do you mind’ or an apology. And if they can’t be trusted to employ the social graces their selves then why shouldn’t the law step in and tell them “no, poisoning people with second hand smoke isn’t on. Making other people smell with your pollution is thoughtless and inconsiderate don’t do it”. Only an addict can be told not to be thoughtless and inconsiderate and then find a way to justify doing just that.

And the latest justification: The U.K. is becoming a nanny-state and our freedoms (like the freedom to be unmindful and insensitive) are being stripped from us.

Wrong! We have always had the choice of whether we would poison ourselves costing the NHS millions of pounds for extra care for those who have senselessly inflicted their selves with diseases or otherwise irrevocably affected their health. And we have the same choice when it comes to other people and whether we choose to poison them as well.

Let’s not worry about the U.K. becoming a nanny state, let’s worry about the type of culture where we expect to be able to be able to harm ourselves, to damage our own bodies despite warning and advice and then when we need fixing we put our hand out to the welfare state and cough meekly, ‘please make me well enough to smoke 40 a day again’. Fuck you! Die! It was no accident that got you in this condition, no momentary lapse in concentration, it was the constant and slow attrition of carcinogenic materials that you happily ingested everyday.

And what makes me angrier about the sudden call to arms against our oppressors, those that choose to turn our ‘liberal’ U.K. into George Orwells dystopia by removing one freedom at a time, starting with the small victory of cigarettes; what angers me is that these, our liberators of such oppression were nowhere to be seen when our real freedoms were being impinged upon. Trident, new anti-terrorist laws, Brazilians being gunned down in the street, all of these things were accepted with a sharp intake of breath and a long smoking sigh.

Staring Right Back

Have you ever felt like someone was watching you and then you turned around to see who it was just to find … [dramatic pause] there was no one there. Scary isn’t it? Sends a chill down the back of your neck and makes the hair on your arms stand on end.

imagine that you moved out of this persons line of sight only to notice that same feeling of being watched again, and noticing another pair of eyes fixed on you

Well imagine feeling like someone was watching you and turning to find that someone was actually watching you, unblinking, unflustered by your eyes meeting theirs and unrelenting in their inspection of you. Now imagine that you moved out of this persons line of sight only to notice that same feeling of being watched again, and noticing another pair of eyes fixed on you set in an unsmiling face on top of a neck that pivots with your every move.

Well the latter scenario is my life. I feel like the uninitiated stranger who’s walked into the village of a horror movie, everything seems fine on the surface but those eyes constantly watching, they suggest that nothing is right beneath it.

Maybe I’m just paranoid, ‘wierded’ out by a behaviour that seems so foreign to me. Perhaps I should, after 10 months, accept that I look curious to them, and that’s why they stare, woman, man and child.

I once voiced my concerns to someone, and was consequently likened to an alien.

“What if you saw a Martian on the street, wouldn’t that freak you out a bit.”

What freaked me out was being likened to something that didn’t exist, and to something that in popular culture is to be feared and not trusted. Those points aside, I’m nothing like an alien, I’m a lot like any other black person, a race of people who some believe predate Caucasians, a race of people who have been part of British society predating the abolition of slavery. Seeing a black person is like seeing a tree in the fact that no one can deny they exist and where we may all be different tree’s, I’m distinctly not alien.

I would pretend that their fixed unsmiling gaze was a look of awestruck wonderment. However ...

In fact scratch that because seeing a black person is like seeing a person in the fact that no one can deny they exist and where we all may be different people, I’m distinctly not alien.

So in my head for a while I would liken the staring to a person seeing a rare car, a Ferrari or a McClaren, and I would pretend that their fixed unsmiling gaze was a look of awestruck wonderment. However the other day I saw the same unfriendly stare, the same investigative and unblinking eyes in another face.

“disrespected, unwelcome, threatening”.

As I was walking to school I had passed too close to someone else’s territory and the staring started. Curious, alert and slightly afraid, he looked right at me fixing my gaze with a stare, unsmiling, unfriendly, not shocked, I wasn’t alien to him. And as I passed him his head turned slowly to keep me in sight, and then he done something that frightened me, he got up on all fours, pulled at his leash and barked!

A dogs eyes will never hide what they’re saying, “unwelcome, unwanted”, similarly the eyes I feel on me and then catch sight of are equally honest, “disrespected, unwelcome, threatening”.
I could go on, but I feel the side of me that has been trained to be politically correct pulling me inline. I wouldn’t want to point out any one peoples social inadequacies because that is racist, better instead to accept it, leave it unchallenged and barking loudly, whilst tethered to a place in social evolution most have long since left.

Hunting for Truth

There’s something to be said of the wisdom of actors. I just listened to Ben Kingsley describe acting as tribal, and actors as hunters, eager to find the truth of the play, the truth inside their part. It’s a stretch for the imagination but, it felt right to me as he explained.


He said that as an actor, being trained formally, you feel that you want to hunt, want the thrill of it, want the adrenaline and the fear and the kill. You want to get out there and you want to pull back your bow and fire it. But instead you’re given a bow with no arrow, and you're told to pull it back, over and over and over again.

This teaches patients, this teaches stillness and if you’re confident that you’re are a hunter, that you have an important place in your tribe then you will happily be still, you will happily watch and learn, and pull your arrow-less bow content to perfect what you know you were born for.

that is the moment the hunter in you can be let out because then you have the coolness to temper the fire

And when you find yourself so patient, so content, so complete with no arrow, no thrill and no kill, then that is the moment you’re ready for the arrow, that is the moment the hunter in you can be let out on the stage because then you have the coolness to temper the fire. And for all those time when you wanted an arrow and only received a bow, you’re grateful.

hates when people come to into any encounter with preconceptions

I want to learn patience, tolerance, to be at one with myself, not to be at odds with myself. Ben said something else interesting as well, when asked what turns him off he said he hates when people come to into any encounter with preconceptions. It’s my own fault and it’s the fault of many people I know, and I hate seeing it in myself far more than in others.

Well, I know that I have a lot to learn, there’s a lot I can gain from just watching and being patient.

Style Lama

Maybe I see irony where there is none or maybe I’m just far too sensitive (something I’ve never been accused of being…) but, let me recount a little non-incident from the Re-contracting conference for you and lets see if we can’t find the ironies together.

there’s only the will to survive the approaching snore-o-thon

So it’s the third day of the conference, I’m tired, disheveled, and glad that in a few hours all the lectures and all the self-improvement will soon be a memory, fast fading and leaving me as ignorant as I was when I arrived on Monday.

I’m wearing my three piece suit, with no tie and a pink shirt which certainly needs a tie to reign it in, I know I look a mess but it’s my prerogative and I don’t care. There’s no one to impress today, there’s only the will to survive the approaching snore-o-thon and leave. A lot of people have just turned up in jeans and t-shirts, fair-play to them, I wish I had thought of that.

I see a person I know across the room whilst waiting for lectures to begin and I go over to say good morning,

“How are you?”
“Fine, you?”
“Fine, how was last night?”
“Great! But this morning….”
“Oh yeah, me too.”

Then I’m introduced to her friends A and B,

“Hi A, hi B, Stephen, pleased to meet you.”

As soon as B has said hi, he’s telling me that he ‘simply must fix my collar’, and then invites himself to do so apparently assuming responsibility for my appearance and ignoring the boundaries of personal space.

...I’m looking about the room for anything that looks like a chance to escape their company in a manner which won’t offend

I thank him for his assistance and then turn to my acquaintance and inquire about something banal, when I’m interrupted again by person B who then undoes my bottom button of my waist-coast for no less of a reason than “that really pisses me off”… the list of things that piss me off all the while is growing.

spiritual wellbeing, coexistence or harmony. The thought confused an already befuddled and hung-over mind

So, person B has successfully made me feel awkward and unwelcome and I’m now very self-conscious about my appearance. As I’m looking about the room as coolly as the situation dictates that I should, for anything that looks like a chance to escape their company in a manner which won’t offend, B takes a book out of his bag and passes it to my acquaintance. My jaw nearly hit the floor when I saw what it was, The Secret of Happiness by the Dali Lama.

I wondered if such a person could have really read and understood anything about spiritual wellbeing, coexistence or harmony. The thought confused an already befuddled and hung-over mind and I decided, socially acceptable escape route or no I was leaving.

T.I.J

Have you seen Blood Diamond with Leonard DiCaprio? Well its about a diamond smuggler in war torn Africa, this cheeky chappy has a very flippant attitude to the bloodshed, tragedy and corruption that goes on arround him: It can't be helped, it's the way it is, because TIA... this is Africa, my friend.

Things here in Japan make my blood boil, way past the second stage of culture shock, still things just don't add up. Fortunately if it doesn't make sense it can be answered with three simple letters: TIJ (This is Japan).

Let me show you.

Q:Why is it that people here will evangelise about how safe Japan is but all I ever hear about is dismembered ex-pats, escapee suspects and 17 year olds decapitating their mothers?
A: TIJ

Q: It's my weekend, mine to spend however I choose. Yet I need to fill out a form to tell the school I work at that I will be staying at a friends for the weekend. It's like I'm checking in with my mother giving her my school mate's mother's number so they can call if they get worried... what the fuck?
A:TIJ

Q: I go to the trouble of making someone a present, in this case let's say a CD of pictures from the year. I hand it to the recipient with all the requisite humility that such an act requires here and because it's not wrapped in cheap, tacky wrapping paper its looked upon as worthless and hardly a word of grattitude is uttered. So it's not the thought that counts?
A: Of course not... TIJ.

You see, every question pertaining to frustration which is felt by living in Japan's backwater can be simply answered thus: T I J.